MURDER FOR FUN AND FOR PROFIT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 262, 30 June 1944, Page 6

MURDER FOR FUN AND FOR PROFIT

"Arsenic and Old Lace" Seems Queer Fare For War Time HAT special quality does a play need to catch and hold audiences all over the World for ‘week after week and month after, month in the middle of a war? .Though it would be a bold person who would try to give a final answer to that question, most people would probably be inclined to say hilarious farce, emotional drama, or domestic sentiment-but ‘not a farce that turns on 13 murders committed by two charming old maiden aunts. Yet in "Arsenic And Old Lace" that is what does the -trick. . Since this famous play is now being presented in New Zealand by a touring company, many of our readers will be interested in this account of its history, written by Russel Crouse, one of the two original Broadway, producers, and condensed from "Life."

ATE in the afternoon of January 10, 1941, a few hours before the curtain rose on the first New York performance of Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace, Mr. Howard Lindsay, who is known as the charming member of the firm of Lindsay and Crouse, shook my trembling hand and said: "We have not long to wait. It is my studied conviction that we either have a very big hit or we will both be run out of town." He vanished into the dusk. With a hasty glance over each shoulder I hurried home, instructed my man to lay out my running pants, and took a hurried look through my dog-eared copy of the elder James’ (Jesse, not Henry) Posses and How to Outwit Them. Depressed at the calculation that I probably would not get my second wind until I had passed Sandusky, Ohio, but cheered in the hope that if I could reach the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, of which I believe I am still a member, I could claim sanctuary, I set out for the theatre. That, by even. the Aztec calendar, was more than three years ago. Mr. Lindsay and I are still.in New York and walk its streets freely. Arsenic and Old Lace is still in New York, too, playing at the Hudson Theatre. Only three plays in the annals of the American

theatre have achieved longer runs — Tobacco Road, Abie’s Irish Rose, and Life with Father. In those three years Arsenic and Old Lace has had, I believe, more unusual adventures than any other play of our time. At this moment it probably is being played in 20 communities in various parts of the world from Wellington, New Zealand, to Goose Creek, Texas. It has made three tours of the U.S. and has been shown in every nook and cranny which still boasts an op’ry house, with casts headed by such chill-billies as Boris Karloff, Erich Von Stroheim, and Bela Lugosi. It is also well into its second year in London. At the conclusion of its third year on Broadway, a phalanx of certified public accountants and double-entry bookkeepers, working in eight-hour shifts, gave out a bulletin to the effect that it had grossed, in New York, 1,835,875 dollars; on tour in America, %,793,234 dollars; and in London £144,327 — a total of more than 4,000,000 dollars. And the end is not even within artillery range. Add to that, which you will have to do sooner or later, the motion picture version with Cary Grant as’ its star and Frank Capra as its director. It will soon be released to army camps overseas and later in the year generally, and its producers, Warner Bros. expect it to amass a conservative 2,500,000 dollars. Why the Worry? Why then, you ask, did Mr. Lindsay and I, its producers, tremble on the eve of its opening and prepare to flee the city? The answer is simple.. Arsenic and Old Lace, because it defies practically every dramatic convention, was probably the greatest gamble so far as audience interest is concerned, in‘the history of the American theatre. It is not a homespun idyl of sweetness and light. Its principal characters are murderers or maniacs or both, Its love interest consists of several scenes in which the juvenile tells-the ingenue to go home and stop bothering him. It is as devoid of sex as a plate of corned-beef hash. That audiences in whose homes homicide and paranoia have never been the subject of jest, should suddenly embrace them both as highly ludicrous and at the finish of three acts be urging two dear old ladies to commit their 13th murder, is fantastic. But it is no more fantastic than many other things that have happened to the play. It is, for instance, the only play ever presented on Broadway in sign language. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) The deaf-and-speechless members of the Dramatic’ Club of Gallaudet College of ‘Nashington, D.C., the only college for the deaf in America, enacted it at the Fulton Theatre in New York before an

audience as eerily silent. The performance overcame every problem it presented, even the fact that one important scene is played with the entire stage blacked out. For this the actors were provided with phosphorescent gloves,

which made their manual labour completely legible. Last year it was presented at the Hudson Theatre by the youngsters of the Professional Children’s School. The (continued on next page)

MURDER FOR FUN

(continued from previous page) members of this cast ranged in age from 7 to 12. Most children of these years play tag, mot three-act drama. Their performance was acclaimed by the critics and by all the members of the audience save one. This gentleman, his vision somewhat dimmed by a hangover, read no further than the words, "Matinee To-day" when buying his ticket, He fled after the first few minutes, convinced that the demon rum had unhitched his senses, but greatly relieved when reaching the sidewalk to find that there were people in the world the same size as he. The role of Aunt Martha was played on this occasion by Miss Lorna Lynn, a blonde vixen of 10. , Arsenic and Old Lace was the first play to be enacted by its Broadway cast in the great gymnasium of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where it was witnessed by 3,000 future Army officers. Already the play has achieved more than 1,000 amateur performances, Breaking through the American boundary line for a 200-performance run in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Arsenic and Old Lace has gone on to such widely scattered and lingually diversified centres as Stockholm and Goteburg in Sweden; Rosario and La Plata in Uruguay; Honolulu; London; Santiago, Chile; Lima,. Peru; and Melbourne and Sydney in Australia. It may also have played Mexico City. A year ago we received a telephone call from a gentleman who identified himself as representing the State Department. He said that two companies in Mexico City claimed the right to perform the play, and that the American Embassy had asked that the dispute be settled in the interests of international amity. Having no desire to become involved in an altercation in Spanish, we tossed the entire matter into the lap of Mr. Hull. We have made no further inquiry for fear of shots across the border. "Arsenic" is Free in Russia It may even be playing in Russia, too, for several weeks ago, through the Russian Committee of the Writers’ War Board, we presented the Soviet Government with the rights to present it free of production fee, its royalties to be turned ‘over to a fund for Russian authors. This was not only a goodwill gesture. It was also an attempt to win over at least the dramatic critic of Pravda. The foregoing list of foreign productions is by no means a record and we do not cite it as such. Many plays have played in many more places. We do believe, however, that it is a record in wartime. International conflict presents difficulties to the international theatre. Even the loudest of actors do not care to compete with qa good noisy air raid. And then there is the matter of transportation. For instance, the first manuscript of Arsenic and Old Lace dispatched to England never reached there. A Nazi submarine commander evidently did not like the play. In London the King chose the occasion of his birthday to break a family precedent. He took the entire Royal (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Family to Arsenic and Old Lace and it was the first time the Princess Elizabeth and Margaret Rose had been permitted to attend a West End play at night. It was also the first play seen by General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery after his return from his African cross-country run. It probably has attracted more money to the theatre than any other production in history. The result has been the production of many a play which should never have seen the spotlight. "We're Dead but We Won't Lie Down" / Perhaps one final statistic about — Arsenic and Old Lace will bring this saga to an end. It is, I believe, the only play ever produced in which the actual cost of one single laugh can be figured to the penny. Usually a laugh is buried so deep in a manuscript that any attempt to evaluate it is futile. At the conclusion of Arsenic and Old Lace, after the curtain has fallen on the final scene, it lifts again and from the cellar stride 13 gentlemen portraying the corpses of those hapless victims who have been lulled to sleep by the potion so gayly administered by the Brewster sisters. It provides an enormous laugh. The stories concerning these ambulating cadavers are many. The original 13 formed themselves into a vaudeville act which played New York’s night clubs singing We’re Dead But We Won't Lie Down. Then there was the fellow employed as an extra, or utility, dead man when we opened in Chicago. He was told that he would not go on unless one of the other cadavers was absent. But opening night I counted 14 among them. The stage manager explained to him again.. Just as the curtain-call march was to start the next night the stage manager caught the extra slipping into line again. It turned out-that he was just stage-struck. He wanted to take that bow. So we had to lock him in a dressing room each night for the rest of the tun, To return to my final statistic: these gentlemen are paid for the 20 odd seconds they appear before an audience. And because they are paid for that one duty-and because it is always a laugh -we are able to figure the cost of that single laugh. The total as at the end of the third year of the play, in New York and on tour, was 46,175 dollars. The figure is large for one laugh. Too large, you say? Mr. Lindsay and I do not think so. There are probably many people who would gladly pay 46,175 dollars at this moment for a laugh. We have one in mind in particular. His name is Adolf Hitler.